


cold skin

by WilliamSage42



Series: Bare Bones [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Arkenstone - Freeform, I Don't Even Know, I'm Sorry Tolkien, Insanity, M/M, Madness, Necromancy, Sort Of, Suicide, almost norman-bates-esque activity, also kind of short, fast paced, ish, it could be better but i'm lazy, it's more compliant with the movies anyway, oh well, should i even apologise, some gore, the arkenstone is a powerful item with a lot of energy within it, the warnings are a precaution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 15:50:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16370546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilliamSage42/pseuds/WilliamSage42
Summary: There’s something wrong with the hobbit, and it cannot be fixed. Not by anyone. Bilbo’s mind is broken — his heart has willed it so. Even if they could repair this madness, would he want them to?





	1. prologue

Days after the battle of five armies, Bombur finds Bilbo Baggins in the tomb of Thorin Oakenshield. 

When it happened, he didn’t think much of it. Me mumbled a soft apology and turned to leave, but Bilbo stopped him. 

“It’s alright,” he said. “You can stay.”

Bombur stayed, head tilted down as he grieved his travelling companions; the king and his sister-sons, quietly. 

Bilbo, Bombur noted, was standing by the king’s casket. It was then that the dwarf noticed with alarm how Bilbo had opened the casket. 

How he had moved the stone Bombur did not know, but he had. 

Bombur moved closer. 

“We should close it.” He said quietly.

Bilbo sighed and looked up at Bombur, a disconcertingly contented smile upon his lips. “But he couldn’t breathe in there.” 

Bombur felt pain strike his heart. What was the hobbit talking about? 

“I heard him calling. I let him out.” Bilbo said. 

Bombur felt a sense of shock, jerking through his body and wracking his entire being. 

He lent over and looked into the casket. The king lay dead, eyes clouded and face pale, smelling not yet of decay but still of death however fresh. 

“Bilbo,” Bombur whispered. “Thorin’s dead.” It was blunt he knew, but this seemed the time for bluntness. 

Bilbo seemed simply not to acknowledge what Bombur had said. It glanced off him like water bouncing off an oilskin. 

“I must be off now. It was lovely speaking with you, Bombur.” 

And he left.

Bombur rushed up to tell his brother and cousin. And they told the others, and the others discussed it behind the hobbit’s back. 

At the time, it had seemed incredibly mad. Bilbo was being ridiculous, it was just grief, it would pass. 

They didn’t realise is was the most sane he would ever sound again.


	2. i

Dwarves were eating together in a hall, gathered around tables by the dozen. 

Bilbo was the only hobbit in the fray. He sat beside the ‘ri brothers in the chaos, they being the only familiar faces in a crowd of new ones.

Dwarves crawled over everything, shouting and singing and eating. It was a mess of alarming proportions. 

Sun streamed through holes in the upper parts of the walls and painted the scene with brightness. 

Bilbo breathed out contentedly. 

“Hello Bilbo.” Ori greeted softly. 

“Good morning.” Bilbo greeted. 

“It’s the evening.” Nori said gruffly. 

“Is it?” Asked Bilbo, and looked around. “The sun is awfully bright for such a time.” 

Ori looked upon the hobbit with concern. “We’re deep within the mountain. The sun cannot be seen. There are gaslights on the ceiling.” He said. 

The hobbit hummed, eating his food quietly. 

He spoke suddenly, and the dwarves were surprised by it. “When will he wake up?” Bilbo asked. 

He sounded dreamy, disconnected. 

“When will who wake up?” Asked Dori. 

“Thorin.” Bilbo said, as though it were obvious. 

“Thorin’s not going to wake.” Nori Said incredulously. 

When Bilbo did not respond, Ori spoke. “He’s gone.” The young dwarf added solemnly.


	3. ii

They were all quiet for a moment, and then Bilbo looked around as though observing something happening around them with debatable nonchalance. 

“It’s busy in here tonight, is it not?” He mentioned.

“It’s not.” Nori said, tired of the hobbit’s nonsense. 

“How do you mean?” Bilbo asked, still looking around them. 

“Bilbo,” began Ori. “There are only 6 here.” 

Indeed, there were but 5 dwarves in the room. And they were all looking upon the conversation the hobbit was conducting with varying emotions expressed, each a derivative of concern. 

Balin and Dwalin turned all the way around from the table behind theirs, Bifur merely looking up and glancing at them from the left. 

“You haven’t been drinking, have you?” Asked one of the dwarves, Bilbo did not know who. 

“What? No.” The hobbit answered. 

Then he seemed to twitch, it wasn’t subtle, but nor was it all that alarming. Though when his eyes grew wide and he blinked the haze away from his vision, his expression of horror was imprinted into the memories of all those looking upon him without obstruction. 

The crowds of dwarves flickered before Bilbo’s eyes, for a moment they were gone, and he realised with abject terror that the majority of what he saw before him was an illusion. 

Bilbo practically threw himself away from the table, stumbling onto the floor and scrambling up, he ran in a scraggly line towards the exit. He ducked and dived away from things that weren’t there as he went. 

The idea that his perception reality was plagued by falsehoods had begun to slip away from him, and his heart clenched as the realisation of his madness slipped through his mind like water through fingers, or life from those so grievously wounded as the king had been. 

He didn’t want to forget, but he could not save the truth. It dissolved before him, leaving only a clawing horror tickling his mind. 

He blinked as his nose began to bleed, the drops making their pitters and patters on the stone of the floor. 

He staggered down the hallways, clutching at the steadily overflowing pool of red in his hands. 

He knocked right into a stunned Gloin, who grabbed ahold of him in an attempt to keep him from collapsing. 

“You should see my brother.” Gloin said. 

The hobbit shivered and twitched. “They want me.” He said. “They want to kill me.” 

“Who?” Gloin asked, alarmed. 

“The windows.” He said. 

This made no sense to Gloin. Little did he know that the hobbit was seeing windows everywhere that were not real. 

“They’re lies. The windows are lies. Please.” 

Bilbo was dripping with blood only he could see.


	4. iii

Bilbo asked when Thorin would wake up more than three times a day. 

They’d politely remind him of the king’s death, even if Bilbo did not seem to hear it. And to each other they dared not mention the oddity. 

But he did not have another breakdown for a fortnight. To everyone’s surprise, it was the usually quiet Ori who triggered it in a shockingly loud way. 

It was late, and they all sat in the hall. All 10 remaining dwarves and 1 hobbit. 

In the silence, Bilbo spoke. “Where’s Thorin?” He asked. 

“He’s dead.” Ori said. 

Bilbo blinked. “I don’t- when’s he going to wake up?” Bilbo asked, voice true and inquisitive, as though he were inquiring as to the weather. 

“He’s dead.” Ori said again, slightly louder this time. 

Bilbo twitched, several times, his head tilting to the side, his eyes closing as his whole body shivering slightly. He blinked his eyes open again. 

“Where’s Thorin?” He repeated as though he had not been asking the question all day every day for weeks. 

Ori pushed his stool out with a screech of wood against stone that Bilbo seemed not to hear, and stood up abruptly. 

“Thorin is dead.” He said loudly, and it sounded like shouting in the quiet. “He is not waking up! Stop asking! Stop it! Just- stop!” Ori cried, voice breaking for a moment. 

The young dwarf then turned and left the room. 

Bilbo was shaking, it looked as if he were seizing. “I don’t- Thorin- I don’t–“ he kept muttering. 

His breathing kept getting faster and faster, he was dizzy. 

He stood up, all eyes on him, and promptly tripped and fell onto the floor. 

He rolled over and lay there. His legs kicked out over and over, and his fists clenched and unclenched. 

He was crying, and trying to hold back the noise, tears streaming down his face and only small whimpers to be heard. 

Balin knelt down by him, and called his brother over to lift the small figure. 

“Please.” Bilbo said, clinging onto Balin. “I’m mad, I’m mad. Don’t- I’ll forget. Forget. The windows. The windows are lies. They’re going to kill me, please please-“ he fell unconscious. 

In his sleep, a cold sweat covered Bilbo. 

He tossed and turned as horrid nightmares of rotting flesh and tainted souls trekked through his brain. 

The sound of him calling out for Thorin in his sleep echoed through the halls and haunted the dwarves as they lay awake in their beds, disturbed into a persistent waking state by the events of the evening.


	5. iv

It was days later that the king’s body turned up missing.

The dwarves of Erebor, few as they were seeing as others had refused to enter their ‘cursed’ and kingless mountain, searched for it like they had the Arkenstone; unfalteringly, thoroughly and fruitlessly. 

They gathered in the throne room, discussing the nature of the situation. 

Everybody was avoiding one particular topic, a topic that Dwalin was getting fed up with the dancing around of. 

“This is ridiculous.” He said suddenly, and the occupants of the room turned to him. “We know where it is.” 

Everyone looked down and away. Dwalin sighed. “It’s the hobbit,” he said. “The hobbit has Thorin’s body.” 

And he did. 

It was Dori who braved Bilbo’s chambers. 

The dwarf would likely never forget the sight of the hobbit serving tea to the corpse of the king. 

How he had managed to take the thing all the way to his rooms Dori would never know, just as Bombur would never know how Bilbo had shifted the stone lid of the casket. 

Perhaps the hobbit had some hidden strength? 

That thought was far from Dori’s mind as he looked upon the scene. Bilbo was humming and pouring tea, looking quite gleeful. 

And the king. The king was pale, his skin a waxy tone. The room smelt horrid, and there was a scraggly dark substance leaking from the sockets of Thorin’s clouded eyes. 

Dori choked back bile as he called his fellows to the room. 

The king would go back in the casket, but he would not stay there long.


	6. v

Bilbo had the king’s corpse out of the casket again. It lay on the floor as the hobbit caressed it’s cheek. 

The cold and unnatural seeming skin did not sway the hobbit from his stroking. 

The corpse of his love was not the only thing Bilbo’s attention was upon. He was clutching the Arkenstone. It pulsed with a strange magic, Bilbo could feel it. 

The hobbit smiled as he pushed the tip of sting through the layers of cloth and into the chest of his cold beloved. 

He did not falter as the transparent, foul-smelling yellowish liquid soaked into the clothes of Thorin, or as he plunged his hands into the cavity, past the ribs and was covered in a cool brown pulpy substance. 

He felt the heart inside the body, and tore at it with his bare hands, paying no mind to the pain of the other’s ribs pressing into his wrists as he did so. 

He pressed the glowing stone into the heart, breathing heavily as he felt a power from the rock take hold.

In a different part of the mountain, Bofur noticed he had not seen Bilbo that day at all, and he knew exactly where he would be. 

The dwarf ran to the burial chamber.

He burst into the room just in time to see Bilbo arms deep into the chest cavity of Thorin, a deep glow coming from within the corpse. 

The lurching sensation Bofur felt when the corpse of Thorin twitched and began to speak could not be fully described in any language. 

“What- I can’t see. I can’t- it’s cold, it’s- what’s happening?” Thorin sounded so terrified and confused. 

His words were repetitive and they slowly became more distorted as he slowed like a wind-up toy would when it was needed rewinding.

Finally the glow stopped. Thorin stilled once more, and Bilbo removed his hands from the body’s chest, casting a now dull and dim Arkenstone to the side. Not even a gem of that kind could keep a person alive more than a few agonising seconds.

And what Thorin felt during it — the feeling of your body decaying whilst you are conscious to experience it. It is a wonder he spoke and did not scream. 

And without warning, in one swift movement, Bilbo picked up his blade sting, and thrust it through his own torso. 

The horrified Bofur was frozen in place, only able to look on as the mutilated corpse of his king now stilled leaked fluids over the stone beneath them, and the hobbit collapsed, skewered on his own blade. 

“Have you seen the red?” Bilbo asked, smiling as he made eye contact with Bofur.

The hobbit swirled his fingers through the growling pool of his own blood thoughtfully, and licked them off with no small amount of effort in his dying moments.

“The red; it’s alive.”

And Bilbo’s eyes lost their glint. Just like that, he was gone. 

And in those final moments, through his insanity, he’d at last seen the difference between Thorin and him. Thorin was dead and Bilbo was not. And the hobbit had set out to fix that. 

One way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I don't really know why I whipped up such a horrific, fast-paced, piece of bullshit. 
> 
> Alright so the situation is I had this work up called 'hot blood' which was a time-travel fit-it sequel to this, and then I deleted it from the archive because it wasn't going to get finished any time in the next two years. Maybe in a few years I'll have it finished and then I'll post it, but for now this is the ending you're going to get. 
> 
> I'm SO sorry!


End file.
